This is a year of big changes for me and my family. I graduated university with a bachelor of education. The girl I've dated for 4 years (and was engaged for one of them) is going to marry me in less than a month. However, one of the weirdest changes is that my little sister has graduated high school.
Yes, this is weirder than getting married.
It's weirder because Paige has always been my little sister. Technically, Austin is my little brother, too, but with him being only two years younger, I see him more as equal to my age. We've experienced things roughly at the same time, though I am still waiting for a nice, even beard to grow in. With Paige being seven years younger, I've been able to watch her experience things that I've already done from a varying distance. Now I'll get to watch as she starts college next fall at Briercrest, which is where I went. As I'm living in Saskatoon next year, I'm definitely coming to visit. Janelle will come, too.
Paige, you've been warned.
As you may have guessed after reading thus far, Paige and I are pretty close despite the age gap. Maybe it's because I was always good with younger kids. Maybe she didn't have the chance to get sick of me when I left for college when she was in grade 5. Austin and I are also very close, but a brotherly bond is different than one between Paige and I.
For instance, Austin has never stolen my eyes.
You see, all three of us kids have gone through 4-H raising beef animals for sale. Sadly, when Paige came around, I was practically done and Austin had only a couple years left, so she did it mostly on her own. But that also meant that when either brother came home to visit, they could be expected to help Paige out when it came to driving her to certain events when mom or dad could not, then lending a hand at whatever it is the club was involved in.
Such was the case for me a few years back with the 4-H food drive. The club sets up food donation boxes around the town of Foremost and area which they collect and then sort for the food bank. It's usually very successful, meaning that they need all the help they can get. With both parents unable to meet Paige after school at the place where the food was being sorted to take her home afterwards, I was asked to help out.
Being that meeting Paige at 3:00 in Foremost was my only responsibility of the day, I was in no particular rush to get out of bed or get ready. Heck, everyone else had already left by the time I rolled out of bed. When I'm home, I share the bathroom with Paige, but with her gone at 7, I had no one to compete with, so I could take as much time as needed to get ready. Now, a very important detail about me is that I am not a morning person. Part of this comes from being a nigh owl, but it always takes me a while to wake up. A good rule to go by is no important questions before noon. If necessary, keep the questions to a minimum.
Anyways, once I finally got out of bed, I got a coffee and did some reading, taking my time to fully wake up. Then I made some lunch, watched some TV, and then started to get ready to go into town. After showering and dealing with my hair, I went to go put my contacts in. I grabbed my case, which looks very similar to Paige's, but I made sure to remember where I put it on the counter space.
But my contacts weren't in there.
I rubbed my finger in both of the cups, making sure that the clear plastic disks weren't just being invisible, or that they weren't stuck in the lid. I remembered throwing out some contacts recently, as I change mine monthly, but there were no remnants in the garbage can, either. These were brand new contacts that I had been wearing. Did I leave them in my eyes? I've forgotten them there before, but no, everything was still blurry.
Where the heck were my contacts??
While I thought about it, I decided to brush my teeth. I went to grab my toothbrush, but then noticed that the brush was wet.
That wouldn't have been caused by the steam of the shower...
Then it clicked.
I grabbed Paige's very similar-looking contact case and opened it. Her contacts were still inside.
Paige was wearing my contacts.
Apparently, I'm not the only Reimer child who isn't good in the morning.
I met Paige in Foremost, wearing my glasses that I hardly used, with a giant grin on my face.
"You're wearing your glasses?" She asked. I hardly ever do so in public.
"Well I had to," I replied. "You're wearing my contacts."
"What? No! These are mine!"
"Nope, I checked your case," I said, shaking my head. "They were still in there."
Paige thought for a second, then laughed. "That explains why everything looks weird today."
We did establish that she hadn't used my toothbrush, only wet it before realizing the err and grabbing her own. So I guess I could have brushed my teeth before I left instead of grabbing gum.
You probably didn't need to know that.
But we made sure to use different cases when I came home and made it very clear where the other put their contact case. I even wrote my initials on them once, but they faded pretty quickly. Paige eventually switched to daily (or weekly?) contacts, primarily wearing glasses, and removing the need to have a specific counter space for her eye stuff.
So, you may be close to your siblings. Closer than anyone else you know. But I doubt your so close that you've shared your eyes with each other.
Yes, the sharing was involuntary, but it still counts.
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